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When I Was A Kid...

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My dad used to tell me and my siblings to play outside so every so often; that when he was a kid they weren't even allowed inside until dinner. I realize now that he just wanted to get laid, or, I'm assuming as much. Either way, he was right. If we weren't forced to play outside, we'd have spent our entire childhood indoors playing Nintendo (I certainly would have). So we would go to the small creek behind our cul-de-sac and run around, throw rocks, and catch tadpoles. I think it's pretty cool that I was interested in seeing the development of tadpole to frog when I think back at it now. At the time, I'm pretty sure I just wanted a whole bunch of pets. Anyway, the tadpoles always died before they starting growing legs, because I was a little asshole and took them out of their natural environment to put them in a pickle jar filled with tap water. I was sort of a tadpole myself, running around without a care in the world and mostly oblivious to everything unless it was directly affecting me. I enjoyed the creek and committed accidental tadpole murder on several occasions.
Now, my perspective has widened, and my creek is now South America, or Europe, or Asia, and I no longer care to capture the local wildlife. And while there is still plenty to be discovered within close proximity, it's not satisfying like it used to be. That's what I miss about being a kid. The simplicity. It was always fun to go to the creek, and throw rocks, and catch tadpoles even if the outcome was always the same. Although, it's probably not even true, (I'm quoting a meme for Christ's sake) some say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I miss being a kid and being insane. At least I still have a creek, it's just harder to get to now.
Anyone else have any interesting childhood stories/memories?

I can't think of any stories, per se, but I've got plenty of great childhood memories.

My cousins used to come to stay once a year in the summer, and as they lived in London suburbs, the countryside was a great novelty to them, as theirs was to us when we went to stay with them. When they came to stay with us they used to love climbing on hay bales and going for long walks over the fields (and getting lost). I loved visiting them in the 'burbs, where you could walk to the park, local sweet shop and cycle around the block and be part of a gang.

I also remember when I was kid, just spending afternoons staring out of my bedroom window, which overlooked the village's one bus stop and telephone booth and day dreaming.

Crescendo wrote:

Anyway, the tadpoles always died before they starting growing legs, because I was a little asshole and took them out of their natural environment to put them in a pickle jar filled with tap water.

I remember one year getting some indian stick insects from the village fete and experiencing extreme guilt when they died. I think they lasted a month or two, which could be their life expectancy anyway, but I definitely did not give them fresh leaves often enough.

I am going to dominate this thread! DOMINATE it I tells ya!
I guess I'll just go year by year.
Kindergarten. Would have been the fall of 1979/spring of 1980. Mrs. Sallee's a.m. class. I can still name almost everyone in it because it was pretty much the same 15-20 of us all the way through 6th grade. I remember thinking that the a.m. class must have been for the smarter kids, so they could get us out early and then help the dumb kids for the rest of the day.
I don't know who was ever in the later class to base this on and there was one monkeywrench in my little kid theory, was that we had one kid in our class, and the one that really stands out to me nowadays, James, that was learning disabled and had been held back in kindergarten for, what I thought must have been 3 or 4 years, but now thinking about it was probably just 1 year. He was a giant to me! Like a kindergartener version of John Coffey from the Green Mile. It took me a long time to grasp why he was in "our" class, like he was an intruding outsider. I don't think I ever did realize how much a part of our class he was until after 1st grade, when he was moved to the special needs building across the street and the only time we'd see him after that was, when we were having lunch, we could see their class outside having recess. But he always seemed to be having fun, so I always hoped it was the best that they got him in a better class. Which kind of hurt because I always thought we were the best class.

Anyways, to graduate kindergarten, all we had to do was 5 things. Learn the alphabet, learn to count to 100, learn to spell our name, learn our address (I'm not sure if we had to learn to write this down or just recite it out loud, seems like a lot of letters to ask some kindergarteners to learn) and tie our shoe.
For the alphabet, we had The Letter People, which was some PBS show and I guess they had this tie-in thing for schools. because we had little inflatable things/dolls? of all the characters and each day we'd learn a new one, we'd inflate the thing for it. Miss Achoo, Miss Opera, Super Socks! All the vowels were girls and the consonants were boys, which I guess is kinda sexist, but it was pretty could at getting us to recognize a difference between vowels and consonants. I forget what Y was, but it seems like it was a guy, because I've always had a hard time accepting that it's ever a vowel.
I picked up the whole alphabet and numbers thing easily enough, I think I went to 1,000 in the numbers. But the tying of the shoe was a little harder to crack. We had these little construction paper shoes with some yarn through them for laces, I was eventually able to get through that and if I took my shoe off I could tie it fine, but once it was on my foot, everything was all backwards and didn't make any sense. But I finally got it with like a month to go in the school year so I got to graduate and not get held back for next year's dumb class.
I also had, what I guess, was a crush on my teacher. I don't know if kids that young can have crushes or if this is just some retroactive thing, because I've had a couple teachers that I had crushes on. But I just remember thinking how pretty she was.
In any event, I was on to 1st Grade!

Thanks, Hattie. I think it's fun to hear peoples' childhood memories and imagine them as kids. My imagination is a little slow. I imagine tiny versions of adults doing little kid stuff. If my imagination were in the Captain's kindergarten class, it would have been held back for not being able to tie its shoe properly.

There was a banker who came into the Muffin Place and once I looked up at him in an accusatory fashion. There were two of him, I was sure. There was not the possibility of doubt until somebody told me that there wasn't two of him because that was impossible unless he was a twin which he wasn't, and I said No. Not a twin. There is two of that guy. He had ordered lunch and then left and then came back and ordered a different lunch. The first guy was friendly, but the second was confused. He had tried to be friendly, the second guy, but everyone thought he was someone else, and I was the only one who noticed, and when he saw, he became frightened.

There was the Black Market to consider. I assumed he had something to do with it, for every evil in the world explained to me yet vanished from the world, what is the Ku Klux Clan, what is the Communist? must have had some tie in with the people--they--who would take me, and sell me there, next to butterfly knives and switchblades, Nazis and ninjas watching over the lot of it. I remember waiting at the bus stop for Them, who were said to strike there, expecting Them to be the two guys from the muffin shop. I saw red lights my first trip into a city and asked to go there and was told that I can't go there. Dad can go there but he doesn't. I stared at the red lights, and laughing, drinking heads, thinking they must know where the black market was, born to stockholm syndrome, sure they would let me stay and not want to sell me but instead give me black market weapons and let me be a ninja.

It wasn't until I wouldn't stop asking about the black market that an uncle explained to me there was no such thing. That illegal things were sold by individuals, drug dealers selling drugs and weapons dealers selling weapons. It was just an expression, the black market, my Araby not closed early but metaphorical. You pictured it like the flea market, didn't you? But if there isn't an actual black market for kids to work at then why do they need child slaves?

When they taught me the alphabet, the first word I wrote was ninja. I hid it but the teacher found it, opened it slowly wondering what a child she just taught to write could have written that was worth hiding. Nija. Ninja? You're not in trouble, but you spelled it wrong. It just seemed to follow that if you found the black market you would find ninjas. The only loose end was the bankers, whatever evil plot they had that it took two of the same man to carry out.

My dad used to tell me and my siblings to play outside so every so often; that when he was a kid they weren't even allowed inside until dinner. I realize now that he just wanted to get laid, or, I'm assuming as much. Either way, he was right. If we weren't forced to play outside, we'd have spent our entire childhood indoors playing Nintendo (I certainly would have). So we would go to the small creek behind our cul-de-sac and run around, throw rocks, and catch tadpoles. I think it's pretty cool that I was interested in seeing the development of tadpole to frog when I think back at it now. At the time, I'm pretty sure I just wanted a whole bunch of pets. Anyway, the tadpoles always died before they starting growing legs, because I was a little asshole and took them out of their natural environment to put them in a pickle jar filled with tap water. I was sort of a tadpole myself, running around without a care in the world and mostly oblivious to everything unless it was directly affecting me. I enjoyed the creek and committed accidental tadpole murder on several occasions.
Now, my perspective has widened, and my creek is now South America, or Europe, or Asia, and I no longer care to capture the local wildlife. And while there is still plenty to be discovered within close proximity, it's not satisfying like it used to be. That's what I miss about being a kid. The simplicity. It was always fun to go to the creek, and throw rocks, and catch tadpoles even if the outcome was always the same. Although, it's probably not even true, (I'm quoting a meme for Christ's sake) some say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I miss being a kid and being insane. At least I still have a creek, it's just harder to get to now.
Anyone else have any interesting childhood stories/memories?

When I was a kid we used to have dirty restrooms in the primary school I went to, so whenever I wanted to pee I'd go there and just couldn't use the toilet, then asked the teacher to let me go again and again and eventually I'd pee my pants in class and someone had to call my dad to take me home.

When I was a kid I stunned the secretaries at my mum's university when I was one and a half and she took me to one of her exams. I was waiting with dad outside and he asked for a newspaper, the ladies said I'd just tear it apart and make a mess, and then I started reading letters out loud.

When I was a kid I used to believe when people got married they would be tied around the waist with a cord as part of the religious ceremony. And I couldn't understand where that cord would go to, because I didn't see anyone tied up like that.

When I was a kid I used to believe when people got married they would be tied around the waist with a cord as part of the religious ceremony. And I couldn't understand where that cord would go to, because I didn't see anyone tied up like that.

I was. I still am, with strangers. My friends can't see it but I'm an introvert. I also don't make eye contact for more than a few fleeting seconds. Eye contact usually means I'm really comfortable with you (I don't look most of my friends and family in the eye) and/or I want to sleep with you.

When I was a kid, we went to the Empire State Building and there was a band playing and I danced and danced and danced and a crowed gathered to watch me, but I didn't notice, so at the end I looked up and saw and was embarrassed and hid. I don't remember it, but my mom tells me about it from time to time.

I'm the same way. It's actually really horrible because people take it the wrong way. But I've become better about it because of work.

I almost always show as an introvert on those tests and people are usually surprised. I had to learn not to show it for work. It's possible to be an introvert and a very good actor. Personally, with a few notable exceptions, I'd much rather avoid the eye contact thing but some silly social conventions seem to require it.

When I was a kid we used to have dirty restrooms in the primary school I went to, so whenever I wanted to pee I'd go there and just couldn't use the toilet, then asked the teacher to let me go again and again and eventually I'd pee my pants in class and someone had to call my dad to take me home.

When I was a kid I stunned the secretaries at my mum's university when I was one and a half and she took me to one of her exams. I was waiting with dad outside and he asked for a newspaper, the ladies said I'd just tear it apart and make a mess, and then I started reading letters out loud.

When I was a kid I used to believe when people got married they would be tied around the waist with a cord as part of the religious ceremony. And I couldn't understand where that cord would go to, because I didn't see anyone tied up like that.

I learned how to spell "Chicago" from going to the bathroom in 2nd grade. All the urinals were stamped with a manufacturer from there. And I'd go about once or twice a day, so by then end of the year, I had that down pat!

Also to tie into the Empire State Building and 2nd Grade, my best friend would bring in some of that old timey computer paper, the kind that had the little holes all along the side and was perforated. We'd take, like, 10 connected feet and draw a huge Empire State type building, then have robber in masks trying to break in, in all sorts of weird and funny ways and then cops, sticking out of the windows or wherever trying to stop them.

My teacher in 2nd grade was Miss Reiss/Sherpenberger. She had gotten married during the year and we had to learn her new name. I had told my parents about it and my dad told me that someone he worked with was named that and had also recently gotten married. So in my head I decided my teacher had married this guy. I even told her that my dad knew her husband. To this day, I have no idea if they really did know each other, but back then I said it because I think I wanted to feel closer to my teacher. She was also one that I had one of those "crushes before knowing what a crush is" things.

Now I'm going crazy.
Because I am positive. POSITIVE! that in 2nd grade we sent letters to the President after he got shot and had our classroom all decked out when the Bengals went to the Superbowl.
But looking at it now, the dates don't line up. They happened a year apart from one another.
1st Grade would have been 80/81 with Mrs Wohlford, she was the old mean teacher and I was upset that I didn't get the other 1st grade teacher Miss Wible.
1st grade was also the year that I had a bee land on my shoulder, and this girl that was sitting next to me (that lived on the street behind our house, that I also had a crush on) kinda pointed and let out a little scream, so I thought I'd impress here with how tough I was by just slamming my head down on my shoulder, thus killing the bee and the threat!
but I just got stung and had to go to the nurse.

3rd Grade would have been 82/83. I had Miss Handler and not Miss McClelland. Which was kind of a push as both teacher were young and good-looking. We did more of our computer paper drawings, but our teacher kind of disapproved of it because of how much floorspace we were taking up with them.
3rd grade is also when I got my only spanking during school. A few days before, we had discovered taking ketchup packets from the cafeteria out to recess and stomping on them to make them spurt. Well, I did it one day and it spurted all over this one girls clothes and I got in trouble. I guess they thought I did it on purpose or something and I probably did, just to see if I could aim them. Anyways I got three swats for that. Is that unfair or what??!

I remember all those years pretty damn well and I'm positive 2nd grade was the President getting shot and the Bengals Superbowl.
Maybe it was early August and we sent Get Well cards or something, but he woulda been out of the hospital way before then. I dunno. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight now trying to figure this out...

When my brother and I were toddlers, my dad woke one morning to us having had made a big ass mess in the kitchen with peanut butter and jelly. He had to go to work, and my mom, who worked later hours was still asleep. Since he didn't have time to clean it up, he devised a plan to save our lives. He taught us this song so we'd sing it to my mom and her not murder us.

Two little monkeys, playin' in the jelly.
Got it on their heads, instead of in their bellies.
Mom got up, and she was mad.
Clean up your mess, 'cause you've been bad.

As children, my brother and i would often throw things at cars. It carried well into our teenage years as well. It was rocks for the longest time but really, we'd throw anything. We had it down to a technique and an art. We could time how fast the car was going and how far away we were and how heavy our projectile was and nail it every time.

90% of the time, nobody stopped, but every now and then someone would stop.

Once when we were 7 or 8, we were in this forest/park and we hit a car and they stopped so we hid in a massive pile of leave and they never found us.

Another time we hit this Suburban and they stopped and we couldn't get away quick enough ("run!") so my brother just told the driver his name was Jason Webster, this kid we hated. He had a mullet. One time my brother smashed an egg on his head and another time we called 911 and sent them to Jason Webster's house.

Another time we hit this car at a college campus and hid by these AC units and then we heard "You little shits! I'm gonna get you, you little shits!" and we looked to see this big overweight lady running towards us so we all split up and got away.

Once we were in a foresty area by the road and it was on a hill so you could just drop rocks onto cars so we nailed this truck and forgot about it and a few minutes later, we left to go somewhere else and the truck we hit was right up the street talking to a cop and we just walked past like nothing happened and they didn't say a word to us.

We used to hide in this tree that blocked our roof and hit cars from our roof. Nobody could ever figure out that's where we were. Once, my parents went to the store so we rushed to the roof, hit a car, and ran back inside because my parents came home. A minute later, someone knocked on the door and said someone threw a rock at their car from our house and our parents were baffled. "We just went to the store, they didn't have time to throw rocks at cars!" But we DID.

Then once we threw a clump of Legos at a car and hit it and the car slammed on the brakes so we ran. My brother and our friend made it into the garage but i wasn't fast enough so i had to hide behind this little brick wall that enclosed the front porch. I could see my brother and our friend in the garage looking at me through the window. I heard the guy walking up and i thought for sure i was busted, i was ready to give up. But then i heard him ask the neighbors about the house and they said just knock on the door (where i was hiding) but the guy said "People get shot for that kind of thing" and he left.

We also briefly had a "gang" called Little Terrors, with gang signs and all. There were only four members at its peak and our one claim to fame was smashing out all of the windows of the portable buildings at school because my brother hated his teacher and that's where his classes were. I got bored and went over to the basketball court while my brother and our friend and fellow gang member Patrick kept breaking the windows. I remember just hearing POW. POW. POW. by the portable buildings but nobody knew what was going on and we never got caught. We even wrote "LT" in the gravel by the buildings.

I hope it doesn't sound like i'm bragging because i'm not. We were bad kids and bored and it makes me laugh now but i'd never condone anything like this. Unless you hate your teacher.

When I was 11-12, we had our own little gang, maybe business venture would be more apt. We called ourselves Whealin' and Dealin' because we would shoplift the heck out of anywhere, then go into school and trade it for other stuff we wanted.

We were pretty ballsy about it too, we'd go behind the electronics counter and take stuff out of the case, then just slip away. This was all before they had security cameras covering 100% of everywhere though.

I remember we had the coolest damn calculators ever, that we had stolen. They were like 3" by 8" and you held them horizontally. There was this slide that you could move from one side to the other.
One side was the calculator and the other had a video game on it. We would play our game and if the teacher was looking, we'd slide that thing over so it just looked like a calculator. We thought we were getting away with the biggest sceme in history with that move.
And it was in black which made it even cooler!

My desk buddy was just telling me about the soft play area she's hired for her son's 5th birthday party. If I have kids, that's where all their birthday parties are going to be. I used to love going to those places.

Maybe I just need to convert a room of my house into a ball pond. I remember watching a UK episode of MTV Cribs and Mel B had done that. Otherwise the house sucked (in comparison to the usual houses you get on MTV Cribs, anyway).

When I was a kid, I thought there was a such thing as Hair Tonic, like you saw on Looney Tunes. I believed this until I was like, sixteen.

I also believed that I came from THE GYPSIES until I was about 5 or 6 because that's what my mom used to tell me. "I don't know where you came from...THE GYPSIES just dropped you at my door. Be good or I'll set you outside for THE GYPSIES to take you back".

So when my Dad took me to Mexico to stay with relatives on vacation when I was very little, I was like, "Ohhhh, these are THE GYPSIES!"

I don't know what it means that I was always the parent the kid would look to for the truth. She doubted me once and he completely set her up and she BET me money. I don't bet unless I know I am 100% correct. I didn't take her money but I hope she learned a lesson.

A couple days ago, I was taking the kids to Grandma's and Grandpa's when the boy announced, "Santa forgot to bring Mommy earplugs."
In her defense, he does talk a lot.
And, it's a lot better than the time he asked, "Daddy, what's a douchebag?" (In my defense, I was cut-off in traffic--almost forced off the road--when I called the other driver 'douchebag'. So I answered, "That guy right there").

When I was a kid I learned how to read pretty early, so I loved to read stuff out loud. One day I was in the kitchen in my kiddie chair, looking out the window and spelling "D-I-C-K". Mum caught me and I explained I was just reading a graffiti on the building across the street.

When I was a kid I learned how to read pretty early, so I loved to read stuff out loud. One day I was in the kitchen in my kiddie chair, looking out the window and spelling "D-I-C-K". Mum caught me and I explained I was just reading a graffiti on the building across the street.

My kid did this too! Just driving through town and she's in a car seat, "FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. I'm reading!"

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